


We Have No Idea What It Could Do

by MundyMorn



Series: Once More, With Bandicoots [2]
Category: Crash Bandicoot (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Opposite of a fix-it, Time Travel, blending of different games, n sane trilogy, scientists - Freeform, series of One-shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 04:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18933784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MundyMorn/pseuds/MundyMorn
Summary: Tropy's scheme has followed through. Perhaps better than Brio can handle.





	We Have No Idea What It Could Do

_Sizzle._

A flash of light outlined spiked shadows all across the lab. Followed by a sharp but lively sizzle of energy. The mechanisms were _overflowing_ with it. The seemingly dark laboratory was well lit by machinery and a deep wine-red, if polluted, sunset.

A pair of bare, gnarly hands with all but shredded nails (results of constant fidgeting and nervous nibbling) clutched at an oh-so familiar lever. Brio stared, transfixed on the light like a magpie by some shiny keys. His posture was hunched, his hands starkly cold, and colder still was the lever he was clutching onto for dear life.

His nerves felt frayed, and the strange distance between body and mind was unsettling.

Nitrus Brio was not a neurologist to the core. Though working on the artificial evolution of lesser creatures transgressed into that realm; having knowledge of the inner workings of the brain was a must. But he was more personally _intrigued_ by the biological and chemical aspects rather than the behavioural.  Cortex was a jack of all trades who crammed all distinctive scientific prowesses into a ghastly mix that would make most professionals cringe.

The point of all this is that Brio had heard of such concepts like ‘sharpening and levelling’ of memories. The bias your own mind had and the passage of time that would take your memories and – with every recall, every replay of a scene in your mind – distort them. Though facts may remain unchanged the memory itself morphs like an enzyme in too high a heat signature, misshapen.

The fact was that the past Brio had been expecting to _see wasn’t_ what he’d been expecting.

He’d been staring mutely up at the Evolve-O-Ray this whole time, fancy that. Brio flinched and pried his hands away from the lever. He was startled to find his hands glove-less, his sleeves a bright and vivid green. Though the familiar colour was...pacifying.

Mutely, N.Brio stared about the area. The stone walls curving overhead, familiar barred windows laced with shallow glass and pointed prongs. The large, square machinery. A towering gallery of cages not too far away. A good few dozen pairs of eyes stared back at him with a mixture of hatred, fear, and animalistic confusion.

Unwanted confusion crashed onto him then.

This was – yes, this, he remembered. He knew this exact moment. But then...had it worked? Had they actually...?

To answer his question, all he had to do was look at the...

For some reason Brio turned his head with a good dose of dread and a pinch of thrill. To his amazement, sprawled and strapped there, half-dazed on, the chair below the Evolve-O-Ray, was the bandicoot.

The difference in him now startled Brio. He drew nearer with a cautious sort of wonder. How _strange._ He seemed _softer_ somehow, simpler even. There was also less of a ‘stretched’ quality to him – the Crash he’d encountered last had been taller, thinner. This bandicoot before him had more weight on him. Perhaps the weight lesser-evolved bandicoots required to survive had simply been shed over the years. He’d never bothered to catalogue the change in Crash Bandicoot’s appearance. Usually their encounters were filled with more pressing matters – like dodging spinning attacks and tossing poisonous chemicals...

He looked _younger._ He’d never taken it into account that Crash might have also aged -

_“Nrrr...”_

Nitrus jumped clean out of his skin.

What in the world? He hadn’t jumped about like that since –

He lent against the tabletop (careful to avoid so much as accidentally touching the unconscious bandicoot) and peered over at the source of the noise.

His brows flew up. He realised said brows were bushier than before.

Cortex’s large, flat head was leant against the control console some yards away. Brio found himself unnerved by his appearance. Everything around him, Cortex included, seemed so _vivid_ , so lucid even – the details and the lights were oppressive. He hadn’t remembered everything being so intense before. His memory of all of this had been...fuzzy.

Cortex was younger, yes. But he had not been going through a very healthy period. The bags under his eyes were blood red and painful to even look at let alone bear. Though the bright colouration wasn’t from age but sheer over-exertion. There was a litheness to him, his hair was coal black rather than a faded one again, and the unlawfully, unapologetic _brightness_ of his yellow skin was startling.

Though he looked ready to vomit.

And, Brio realised with a sheer leap of horror, he was using the power switch as something to lean against.

“D - Doctor C-cortex –“

Brio clamped both hands over his throat.

He had forgotten this. Oh, he had forgotten and he had not missed it. The itch in his throat, the slight dryness, the way his teeth and tongue seemed to tangle over a word. Constantans had been his sworn enemy but all through his youth he’d learned to live with it. Manage it, even. Curse him for forgetting –

Hang on.

His voice had been...deeper still?

That through him for a loop. But Cortex groaned again, taking his attention away. Brio all but sprinted over to his old colleague and pulled his hands off the switch. Cortex all but toppled into his arms then, and Brio cringed. “C-Cortex! Get a –h-h,” Curse it. He breathed in sharply, “Get a _hold_ of y-yourself!”

Cortex remained listless for a moment, limbs flopping uselessly towards the floor. Then, his raw-skinned and sunken in eyes opened a tad. Brio could see the effects of a headache and wondered – why was Cortex of all people the most effected...?

Another grown from the other scientist, and his beady pupils focused on Brio’s half-irate, half alarmed scowl. “N.Brio? Turn off the lights will you...”

Brio rolled his eyes upward and gave the shorter man a good shake. Smaller he may be, but no less heavy. “C-come off it! W-wake u-up, we’re _here_!”

Cortex gave a jolt and suddenly his eyes were entirely open – too open, almost. He sprang up with such suddenness that Brio had to resist the urge to duck away and cover his head. Confound this body’s muscle memory...

The yellow man had leapt up, swaying on the spot. His arms flailed from a good second, almost striking the taller scientist in the noggin, but at last Cortex seemed to find his bearings. He gawked at the lab, the floor, the Evolve-O-Ray.

A shaky, maddened bubble of a laugh rippled from the man’s lank lips. Then he started laughing, clutching one side of his face. Brio eyed him with a mixture of unease and disdain. Really, it wasn’t like they weren’t expecting this –

Cortex spun theatrically on his heel and seized Brio by the shoulders. The taller and gave a sharp bark of alarm as his colleague yanked him close and shook him. “Brio! Do you know...what this _means?!”_

N.Brio wondered, idly, if a good slap would clear his head. His hand itched at the idea. Hmm, would it be worth it?  “C-Cortex...” He began – before trailing off.

Still clutching his cohort’s shoulders to keep him steady the taller scientist looked over his shoulder. The cages nearby, almost as big as he was in length, emitted short yips and snarls. To the inexperienced ear these were simply casual, normal animal jabbers, but Brio couldn’t help but feel that they sounded...confused.

He wasn’t worried.

Just _slightly_ terrified.

The beady eyes watching from the shadows inside the cages stared back at him with varying degrees of that bewilderment and he quickly cleared his throat. He supposed his old self wouldn’t have been jostling Cortex about like this.

(If only they knew they’d almost simultaneously socked each other in the face not long ago. Not long...later?)

He swallowed with discomfort, breath hitching in his windpipe like water in a knotted straw. Cortex finally looked him in the eye, grinning with such raw-eyed madness that Brio was almost certain that he needed a good ounce of tranquilisers. Oh, yes. Cortex had asked him something.

“Uh, quite sure this means that we got what we wanted. Hm.” He cautiously released his colleague and his hand reached –

 His mutagen wasn’t there. Panic made his face freeze up and for a moment he simply stood there, staring into space with his back slightly hunched.

Cortex threw out a single arm, slamming the opposing foot down, “ _This_ is better than a dream come true.” He drawled, his fingers curling as if to claw the air itself. He gave another disbelieving laugh and for a moment the terrifying grin faltered into a more amusing one. He’d noticed he was wearing his old gloves.

“Ah, perfect polyester and rubber!”

Brio ignored that statement, his fingers still running along his lips. He glanced at the bandicoot again – he had not moved. They hadn’t injected him into the vortex yet. It had been so many years and yet...

Brio stared at his hand. Nibbled, but paler, perhaps even softer in its own right. The mutagen was gone. Of course he knew this was going to happen, but the sheer absence of it. It had always been there, a faint itch or burn beneath his skin and in his stomach, an acidic sensation in his throat. He’d grown so used to it and now the strangeness of it made him unable to speak.

His nerves were on edge but they lacked the substantial fraying the potions and experiments over the years had left. He gave a shaky laugh.

The bandicoot stirred, and finally Cortex’s attention was drawn to him. For a moment Brio was left to gauge the other man’s reaction, watching the proverbial gears turn in his head. Oh dear.

Suddenly Cortex was holding a scalpel that had no business being on that nearby table, and was advancing on the creature. At first, Brio’s instinct was to stop him from acting so irrationally –

“C-Cortex, perhaps –“

Why on earth would he ever defend the mutant? Cortex looked at him as if, forgive the term, Brio had lost his mind. And had he?

It just seemed so easy, so ungodly easy. To finish off the unknowing creature who had caused them so much trouble.

_We are ready, Crash. W-would you l-like to do the – honours?_

Ahh, that old memory. Or new memory? A memory that would – never come to be. Cortex was no longer looking at him, instead humming inquisitively to himself; gloved thumb running along the small sharp point of the tool in his grasp. Never a good sign.

“A little anti-climatic I suppose. There are so many _other_ ways of putting this situation to rest...” That maddened glee stole any rational thinking that expression held and Brio grumbled inwardly to himself...

SNAP.

No, a light bulb hadn’t burst. The power hadn’t hiccuped. Before Cortex could begin tossing out ideas like a dunk card dealer, a tall figure had appeared between the two.

Cortex flung himself back, gripping the edge of the tabletop behind him while a yelp bubbled in his throat. Brio suffered a less embarrassing fate; shock has bolted him into place.

The way N.Tropy had changed was appropriately a paradox. Again, a good few years had been shed and that same vividness that harboured on Cortex’s frame was repeated in his. Yet there were differences in his portable-time suit that Brio could not place...and unfamiliar pigment in his eyes.

And yet he’d never looked more like himself. Nefarious shot them a toothy grin that could’ve been a sneer, but it was gone before it could give any sort of impact. Cortex straightened up indignantly, dusting himself off needlessly,

“Would you cease with that?!”

“You’re _welcome_.” Nefarious returned, his tone flat. He surveyed the lab with open indifference, “Very haphazard, isn’t it? Could you two even see what tools you were fiddling with in this dark?”

Already onto the decor, was he?

“N-N...” Brio couldn’t force his throat to cooperate with him, and Tropy’s lean brow quirked, “It – it worked!”

That soft, awe-sprung laugh was hinted at again in his tone, and he saw the blue man’s lip curl at what was probably very childish praise. Brio was too confounded to be embarrassed, though. Brio clapped his hands together; the gesture more of a jerk than anything else, “Ho! I never suspected –“

“Your faith in my is admirable.” N.Tropy drawled, cutting him off – though it wasn’t hard – Cortex was dismally dusting off some imaginary dust, as if he hadn’t been scared out of his jaundice skin.

“Way to strike while nerves are _high_ , Tropy. Your _gimmick_ won’t have any merit if we do not act as _quickly_ and as effectively as we can.”

Cortex’s voice dipped into a low, slithery purr, as it did with every plotting moment. It always made Brio’s insides furl. “And the _first_ order of business is the _pest.”_

Silence took them all as they turned slightly to eye the prone bandicoot some yards back.

Again, alone in his solitude, subconscious thoughts, Brio felt that hesitation again.

_If the f-fate of the world is **truly** your concern…_

He had cared, once, but that had grown dry and ran out, just like every other shallow, menial faith he had in this world.

Remembering Crash back then was both bizarre and surreal. When he’d started the holo-gram call and confronted the easily duped, doe-eyed mutant, Crash had leant back, arms out, the look of abject fear as potent for him as it was for Cortex. After all, the bandicoot had no inkling of their less-than equal status; Brio had been a lackey in his own project, but all Crash saw when he came into this world was someone as equally terrifying.

The _other_ looming, gangling, baggy-eyed **monster** he’d seen hovering over him in his first moments of sentience.

It had bothered him a little.

Brio had wanted _respect_ , he still did, but the childish, innocent fear of the creature hadn’t been what he’d planned for.

But then, eventually, he’d come to trust him. And it had been mutual.

This world was merciless, cruel, and took you for everything you had. Perhaps Brio felt pity that it had to be that way.

Poor thing, Brio thought, knowing full well that even if he had it in him to act on the frayed principles he had left, nothing could save Crash now.


End file.
